Working With the Hands: Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee
()
About this ebook
born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. This book provides his insights on the value of industrial training and the methods employed to develop it.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was a prominent figure in the African American community and a champion of higher education. He was born into slavery and obtained freedom shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation. As a child, he worked manual jobs to help support his family, but aspired to receive a formal education. He enrolled in Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia and thrived as a student. After graduating, Washington embarked on a career as a lecturer and leader of the Tuskegee Institute. He also worked as a political advisor to presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft.
Read more from Booker T. Washington
Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Book of Christmas Tales: 250+ Short Stories, Fairytales and Holiday Myths & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Will to Be Free Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving to Tell the Horrid Tales: True Life Stories of Fomer Slaves, Historical Documents & Novels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUp from Slavery: An Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Booker T. Washington Reader Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Booker T. Washington Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Booker T. Washington Reader: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography; My Larger Education; Character Building; The Negro Problem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharacter Building Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of Slavery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUp from Slavery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharacter Building Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of My Life and Work (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Character Building Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of the Negro Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Christmas Basket: 200+ Christmas Novels, Stories, Poems & Carols (Illustrated): Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, The Gift of the Magi, A Christmas Carol, Silent Night, The Three Kings, Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Heavenly Christmas Tree, Little Women, The Tale of Peter Rabbit… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack American Classics: Eleven Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Forgotten, Never Could be: Documented Testimonies of Former Slaves, Memoirs & History of Abolitionist Movement Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Working With the Hands
Related ebooks
Working With the Hands: Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOut of Bondage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRural Life and the Rural School Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorking with the Hands: A Sequel to "Up from Slavery" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Cleaning Has Meaning: Bringing Wellbeing Into Your Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The English Housekeeper: Or, Manual of Domestic Management Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King of Cane Garden: My Life & Times, from Teacher Boy to the Corporate Heights and Depths Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlease Excuse Johnny Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaximizing Your Mini Farm: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Disconnect in Early Childhood Education: What We Know vs. What We Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Lessons From The Pennsylvania Dutch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHold Up Your Heads, Girls! Helps for Girls, in School and Out Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIT ISN'T ALWAYS BLACK OR WHITE: Reflections of a High School Principal During Nashville's Integration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Child Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Larger Education: Being Chapters from My Experience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Child in the Midst: A Comparative Study of Child Welfare in Christian and Non-Christian Lands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Belonging: Intentional Inclusivity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLatina Power!: Using 7 Strengths You Already Have to Create the Success You Deserve Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of My Life and Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Larger Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScholar: A Kid's Journey From the Playground to the Lab Coat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPOWERFUL FEMALE IMMIGRANTS: Who Inspire Greatness 24 Women 24 Stories 24 Movements Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Patriarchy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Power of Womanhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLittle Essays of Love and Virtue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Classics For You
A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The New Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Working With the Hands
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Working With the Hands - Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Working With the Hands
Being a Sequel to Up from Slavery,
Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee
Published by Good Press, 2022
goodpress@okpublishing.info
EAN 4066338092069
Table of Contents
PREFACE
CHAPTER I Moral Values of Hand Work
CHAPTER II Training for Conditions
CHAPTER III A Battle Against Prejudice
CHAPTER IV Making Education Pay Its Way
CHAPTER V Building Up a System
CHAPTER VI Welding Theory and Practice
CHAPTER VII Head and Hands Together
CHAPTER VIII Lessons in Home-Making
CHAPTER IX Outdoor Work for Women
CHAPTER X Helping the Mothers
CHAPTER XI The Tillers of the Ground
CHAPTER XII Pleasure and Profit of Work in the Soil
CHAPTER XIII On the Experimental Farm
CHAPTER XIV The Eagerness for Learning
CHAPTER XV The Value of Small Things
CHAPTER XVI Religious Influences at Tuskegee
CHAPTER XVII Some Tangible Results
CHAPTER XVIII Spreading the Tuskegee Spirit
CHAPTER XIX Negro Education Not a Failure
PREFACE
Table of Contents
For several years I have been receiving requests, from many parts of the United States, and from foreign countries as well, for some detailed information concerning the value of industrial training and the methods employed to develop it. This little volume is the result, in part, of an attempt to answer these queries. Two proven facts need emphasis here:
First: Mere hand training, without thorough moral, religious, and mental education, counts for very little. The hands, the head, and the heart together, as the essential elements of educational need, should be so correlated that one may be made to help the others. At the Tuskegee Institute we find constantly that we can make our industrial work assist in the academic training, and vice versa.
Second: The effort to make an industry pay its way should not be made the aim of first importance. The teaching should be most emphasised. Our policy at Tuskegee is to make an industry pay its way if possible, but at the same time not to sacrifice the training to mere economic gain. Those who undertake such endeavour with the expectation of getting much money out of an industry, will find themselves disappointed, unless they realise that the institution must be, all the time, working upon raw material. At Tuskegee, for example, when a student is trained to the point of efficiency where he can construct a first-class wagon, we do not keep him there to build more vehicles, but send him out into the world to exert his trained influence and capabilities in lifting others to his level, and we begin our work with the raw material all over again.
I shall be more than repaid if these chapters will serve the purpose of helping forward the cause of education, even though their aid be remote and indirect.
CHAPTER I
Moral Values of Hand Work
Table of Contents
The worth of work with the hands as an uplifting power in real education was first brought home to me with striking emphasis when I was a student at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which was at that time under the direction of the late General S. C. Armstrong. But I recall with interest an experience, earlier than my Hampton training, along similar lines of enlightenment, which came to me when I was a child. Soon after I was made free by the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, there came the new opportunity to attend a public school at my home town in West Virginia. When the teacher said that the chief purpose of education was to enable one to speak and write the English language correctly, the statement found lodgment in my mind and stayed there. While at the time I could not put my thoughts into words clearly enough to express instinctive disagreement with my teacher, this definition did not seem adequate, it grated harshly upon my young ears, and I had reasons for feeling that education ought to do more for a boy than merely to teach him to read and write. While this scheme of education was being held up before me, my mother was living in abject poverty, lacking the commonest necessaries of life, and working day and night to give me a chance to go to school for two or three months of the year. And my foremost aim in going to school was to learn ways and means by which I might make life more endurable, and if possible even attractive, for my mother.
There were several boys of our neighbourhood who had superior school advantages, and who, in more than one instance, had reached the point where they were called educated,
which meant that they could write and talk correctly. But their parents were not far removed from the conditions in which my mother was living, and I could not help wondering whether this kind of education alone was fitted to help me in the immediate needs of relieving the hard times at home. This idea, however, ran counter to the current of widespread opinion among my people. Young as I was, I had come to have the feeling that to be a free boy meant, to a considerable extent, freedom from work with the hands, and that this new status applied especially to the educated boy.
Just after the Civil War the Negro lad was strongly influenced by two beliefs; one, that freedom from slavery brought with it freedom from hard work, the other that education of the head would bring even more sweeping emancipation from work with the hands. It is fair to add that the Negro was not directly responsible for either of these ideas, but they warped his views nevertheless, and held sway over the masses of the young generation. I had felt and observed these things, and further, as a child in Virginia, had naturally noted that young white boys whose fathers held slaves did not often work with their hands.
Not long after I had begun to think of these new conditions and their results, viewing them as seriously as could be expected of an ignorant boy, an event of my working life left important influences in its wake. There lived a little way from my mother's cabin a woman of wealth, who had lived many years in the South, although she had been born and educated in Vermont. She had a high respect for manual labour, showing actively her appreciation of the dignity of honest work well done, and, notwithstanding her own position and culture, she was not ashamed to use her hands. In the neighbourhood, this lady was reputed to be exceedingly hard to please in the performance of any sort of work on her place, and among the village boys she was called a hard person to get along with.
As I remember, at least half a dozen boys had been successively chosen to live with her, but their residence in service had been consistently short-lived. I think a week was about the average period, in spite of the widely advertised fact that the household had the redeeming reputation of always providing good things to eat. In addition to pies and cakes, which boys in a community like ours seldom saw in their own cabin homes, the orchards around the house bore heavy yields of the finest fruits, yet such extraordinary inducements as these could not hold the boys, who one by one returned to the village with the same story, that the lady of the mansion was too strict and too hard to please.
After a long record of these mutual disappointments, my mother told me that my turn had come, as the rich and exacting personage had sent to ask me to come and live with her, with the promise of five dollars a month in wages. After a long and serious talk with my mother I decided to make the effort to serve this woman, although the tidings of so many failures filled me with foreboding. A few days later, with my clothes made as presentable as possible, and with my heart thumping in fear and anxiety, I reported for duty.
I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner, her wealth, her fine house, and her luxurious surroundings, overshadowed by her appalling severity and exacting discipline, that I trembled with a terror which I shall not try to describe at the thought of facing her. My life had been lived in a cabin, and I was now to try to toil in what looked to me like a grand mansion, an enchanted palace filled with alarms. But I got a grip on all the courage in my scanty stock, and braced myself to endure the ordeal with all possible fortitude.
The meeting was not at all what I had expected. Mrs. Ruffner talked to me in the kindliest way, and her frank and positive manner was tempered with a rehearsal of the difficulties encountered with the boys who had preceded me, how and why they had failed to please, and what was expected of them and of me. I saw that it would be my fault if I failed to understand my duties, as she explained them in detail. I would be expected to keep my body clean and my clothes neat, and cleanliness was to be the motto in all my work. She said that all things could be done best by system, and she expected it of me, and that the exact truth at all times, regardless of consequences, was one of the first laws of her household—a law whose violation could never be overlooked.
I remember, too, that she placed special emphasis upon the law of promptness, and said that excuses and explanations could never be taken in the place of results. At the time, this seemed to me a pretty stern program to live up to, and I was fighting a sense of discouragement when, toward the end of the interview, she told me that if I were able to please her she would permit me to attend school at night during the winter. This suggestion so stimulated my ambition that it went a long way toward clinching the decision to make the effort of my life to satisfy my employer and to break all records for length of service in her household.
My first task, as I remember it, was to cut the grass around the house, and then to give the grounds a thorough cleaning up.
In those days there were no lawn-mowers, and I had to go down on my knees and cut much of the grass with a little hand-scythe. I soon found that my employer not only wished the grass cut, but also demanded that it be trimmed smooth and even. Any one who has tried to mow a lawn with a dull hand-scythe or sickle can realise the difficulties which beset this labour. I am not ashamed to say that I did not succeed in giving satisfaction the first, or even the second or third time, but at last I made the turf in that yard look as smooth and velvety as if I had been over it with the most improved pattern of lawn-mower. With this achievement my sense of pride and satisfaction began to stir itself and to become a perceptible incentive. I found, however, that cutting the grass was not the whole task. Every weed, tuft of dead grass, bit of paper, or scrap of dirt of any kind must be removed, nor did I succeed at the first attempt in pleasing my employer. Many times, when tired and hot with trying to put this yard in order, I was heartsick and discouraged and almost determined to run away and go home to my mother.
But I kept at it, and after a few days, as the result of my efforts under the strict oversight of my mistress, we could take pleasure in looking upon a yard where the grass was green, and almost perfect in its smoothness, where the flower beds were trimly kept, the edges of the walks clean cut, and where there was nothing to mar the well-ordered appearance.
When I saw and realised that all this was a creation of my own hands, my whole nature began to change. I felt a self-respect, an encouragement, and a satisfaction that I had never before enjoyed or thought possible. Above all else, I had acquired a new confidence in my ability actually to do things and to do them well. And more than this, I found myself, through this experience, getting rid of the idea which had gradually become a part of me, that the head meant everything and the hands little in working endeavour, and that only to labour with the mind was honourable while to toil with the hands was unworthy and even disgraceful. With this vital growth of realisation there came the warm and hearty commendation of the good woman who had given me what I now consider my first chance to get in touch with the real things of life.
When I recall this experience, I know that then and there my mind was awakened and strengthened. As I began to reap satisfaction from the works of my hands, I found myself planning over night how to gain success in the next day's efforts. I would try to picture the yard as I meant it to look when completed, and laid awake nights trying to decide upon the prettiest curves for the flower beds and the proper width of the walks. I was soon far more absorbed in this work than in filling in my leisure time seeking mischief with the village boys.
I remained in this family for several years, and the longer I was employed there the more satisfaction I got out of my work. Instead of fearing the woman whom the other boys had found so formidable, I learned to think of her and to regard her now (for she still lives) as one of my greatest teachers. Later, whether working in the coal mines or at the salt furnaces, I learned to find the same kind of satisfaction in everything I did for a livelihood. If while sweeping or dusting a room, or weeding a bed of flowers or vegetables, there remained the least imperfection, I was unhappy, and felt that I was guilty of dishonesty until the flaw in my work had been removed.
While I have never wished to underestimate the awakening power of purely mental training, I believe that this visible, tangible contact with nature gave me inspirations and ambitions which could not have come in any other way. I favour the most thorough mental training and the highest development of mind, but I want to see these linked with the common things of the universal life about our doors.
It was this experience in using my hands that led me, in spite of all the difficulties in the way, to go to the Hampton Institute, where I had learned that pupils could have not only their minds educated, but their hands trained. When I entered the Hampton Institute few industries were taught there, but these had to do with the fundamentals of every-day life. The hand work began with the duties which lay directly in the path of the student. We were taught to make our own beds, to clean our rooms, to take care of the recitation rooms, and to keep the grounds in order. Then came lessons in raising our food on the farm and the proper methods of cooking and serving it in the school. The instruction in iron and wood-work in the earlier years of the institution was mostly in making and repairing the farming implements and in helping to maintain the buildings.
While much of this work may seem rudimentary, it had great educational value. How well I remember the feeling of stimulus and satisfaction inspired by the sight of a perfectly made bed, the pillows placed always at the right angle, and the edges of the sheets turned over according to rules of neatness and system. The work of the farm had a similar kind of influence upon my views of relative values in education. I soon learned that there was a great difference between studying about things and studying the things themselves, between book instruction and the illumination of practical experience.
This chain of experiences, whose links I have tried to indicate, served as a preparation for the work of training the head, the heart, and the hands which I was to undertake later at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. When I went to Alabama to begin this work, I spent some time in visiting towns and country districts in order to learn the real conditions and needs of the people. It was my ambition to make the little school which I was about to found a real service in enriching the life of the most lowly and unfortunate. With this end in view, I not only visited the schools, churches, and farms of the people, but slept in their one-roomed cabins and ate at their tables their fare of corn-bread and fried pork.
FIRST BUILDING ERECTED ON SCHOOL GROUNDSFIRST BUILDING ERECTED ON SCHOOL GROUNDS
Often while making these visits, both in the towns and in the plantation districts, I found young men and women who had acquired considerable education, but it seemed to be limited to memorising certain rules in